If this is your first visit, be sure to
check out the FAQ by clicking the
link above. You may have to register
before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages,
select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

I predicted all of this long before the trade happened. This is not surprising to me. I also predicted D'Antoni will leave or be fired because of the trade. Eventually you guys will see.

I admit... You did nail this one. AND, to rub salt on the wound... Less than 24 hours after the best moment for us Knick fans in 10 years... UTAH trades DERON to NJ and concedes that they were trading Williams to whichever team missed out on 'Melo. Great. Thanks UTAH, DOLAN & Walsh.

BUT, I went out for some fine Spanish food, spent time with the wife, drank some sweet Chilean chianti and finished a fantasy mlb draft. Didn't pay any attention to the Knicks tonight. Why should we?

How any fans show up and watch this nonsense, when everyone on the team is full of excuses (saying this is Summer camp for them)... Why bother attending games at reg. seaosn prices? Screw these tools!

And, please... D'amtoni is now 1-8 aganist teams under .500, now that he's armed with 2 of the best 20 players in the NBA? Are you kiding me? He gts no blame?

The good news is we just discovered some extra cap space next season... Billups is a goner. Cut his ass. NO way I pick up his option. Draft a PG and sign a C, fire the coach and take this team away from Dolan.

This was one of the few losses where I was literally screaming at the television and cursing to myself. This one really hurt me. I truly did not want to lose to the Bucks again after the bad loss we took to them only days ago..

I'm actually found myself starting to question whether MDA can figure out a way to make all of his pieces mesh oncourt.

And the first quarter just pissed me off to no end. How could those guys come out like that, so listless and unmotivated. I put that on our starters by the way. I would like to see coach reward guys who are giving more effort w minutes.

I did like the adjustments MDA made by putting in Carter and S. Williams, and putting TD on Jennings. We cut the lead to one had a chance to win the game.

Idk, I will continue to say MDA is a good coach in a tumultuous situation. I will also continue to hold fast to my philosophy that players have a MUCH higher impact then these coaches can or will ever have. No coach or strategy can overcome deficient players. At the same time winning in the NBA has always been about having the best players you can possibly have on the court, whether it's the Knicks of the 70's or the Lakers of today. All of the coaches we consider great have had fabulous players and won because of them.

For these reasons i'll never understand nor agree w the constant scapegoating of our coach @ the exclusion of other glaringly obvious and/or subtle factors. This team is in like stage 6 of a 10 stage process personnel wise. We need more pieces and the only expected goal for this year was a playoff birth. It's pretty simple. MDA is fulfilling his stated goal for the team. Until that's no longer the case people need to relax on our coach. The problems w our team are definitely not ALL his fault. Those that will tell you it is, w out looking at the whole picture, don't know what hell they're talking about.

This was one of the few losses where I was literally screaming at the television and cursing to myself. This one really hurt me. I truly did not want to lose to the Bucks again after the bad loss we took to them only days ago..

I'm actually found myself starting to question whether MDA can figure out a way to make all of his pieces mesh oncourt.

And the first quarter just pissed me off to no end. How could those guys come out like that, so listless and unmotivated. I put that on our starters by the way. I would like to see coach reward guys who are giving more effort w minutes.

I did like the adjustments MDA made by putting in Carter and S. Williams, and putting TD on Jennings. We cut the lead to one had a chance to win the game.

Idk, I will continue to say MDA is a good coach in a tumultuous situation. I will also continue to hold fast to my philosophy that players have a MUCH higher impact then these coaches can or will ever have. No coach or strategy can overcome deficient players. At the same time winning in the NBA has always been about having the best players you can possibly have on the court, whether it's the Knicks of the 70's or the Lakers of today. All of the coaches we consider great have had fabulous players and won because of them.

For these reasons i'll never understand nor agree w the constant scapegoating of our coach @ the exclusion of other glaringly obvious and/or subtle factors. This team is in like stage 6 of a 10 stage process personnel wise. We need more pieces and the only expected goal for this year was a playoff birth. It's pretty simple. MDA is fulfilling his stated goal for the team. Until that's no longer the case people need to relax on our coach. The problems w our team are definitely not ALL his fault. Those that will tell you it is, w out looking at the whole picture, don't know what hell they're talking about.

He had an effective strategy for a while and then decided to go against it. He had a team that was playing D at the end of the third and beginning of the fourth. Then he decided to take out the guys who were playing D... Billups needs to sit sometimes.

I like him, but he is really ruining the flow of the offense. Taking out Anthony Carter was a big mistake...

He sucked before the trade. We had most of the same problems before the trade as we do now...We just had a little more chemisty before and few guys that occasionally would drive to the basket. Now we have NO ball movement and are strictly a jumpshooting team with maybe one drive to the basket a half. That is redonkulous. That formula will NEVER work, even if we had all the big men in the NBA. (which would never happen because Antoni's idea of a big man is a 6-11, 210 lb. SF who can cover point guards) The guy (Antoni) literally makes me sick to my stomach.

I admit... You did nail this one. AND, to rub salt on the wound... Less than 24 hours after the best moment for us Knick fans in 10 years... UTAH trades DERON to NJ and concedes that they were trading Williams to whichever team missed out on 'Melo. Great. Thanks UTAH, DOLAN & Walsh.

BUT, I went out for some fine Spanish food, spent time with the wife, drank some sweet Chilean chianti and finished a fantasy mlb draft. Didn't pay any attention to the Knicks tonight. Why should we?

How any fans show up and watch this nonsense, when everyone on the team is full of excuses (saying this is Summer camp for them)... Why bother attending games at reg. seaosn prices? Screw these tools!

And, please... D'amtoni is now 1-8 aganist teams under .500, now that he's armed with 2 of the best 20 players in the NBA? Are you kiding me? He gts no blame?

The good news is we just discovered some extra cap space next season... Billups is a goner. Cut his ass. NO way I pick up his option. Draft a PG and sign a C, fire the coach and take this team away from Dolan.

Are you serious? [...] are you seriously posting this when MDA doesn't know what he's doing and there was no good ball movement from anyone tonight [...] But of course blame everything on Melo and not MDA right?

It's simple empirical evidence. Before the trade: ball movement and tons of assists, but we lost games when our threes were not falling. Now, aka after the trade, no ball movement, less threes and we lose every darn game. Idk whether it is Melo or Billups, but somehow it seems like we pooped on ourself by giving up half of our roster for an aging chucker (whom Nuggets fans were glad to see leaving) and MElo. Once Dolan gets involved it's Isiah all over again.
Remember that "formidable" front line of Randolph and Lee (the ads)? This is the same thing all over again. Sometimes it is not a matter of talent but how the pieces fit together and what we have right now to me seems like an attempt to cross-breed a Chihuahua and a Great Dane.

Like I said in the other thread... This team is in preseason mode & it's as simple as that. We lost 3 starters & a key 6th man @ the All-Star break. You know why the previous team was winning under MDA & not losing like this to piss poor teams? Because they had a full offseason of training camp as a team, over 35 different practices + an ENTIRE preseason. Right now? It's worse than preseason mode with less than 3-4 practices as a team, no offseason, no training camp, no preseason games etc etc... You all can blame MDA all you like but anyone that knows anything about sports knows how important an offseason as preseason is. Thats why every sport has offseason & preseason games. To gel, gain chemistry & improve.

Tell that to George Karl in Denver with 5 new guys. I really don't want to hear it. A coach who is a poor defensive coach, a poor in game coach who doesn't believe in taking timeouts or in using his foul to give. D'Antoni is a glorified HS coach, for 6M a year the Knicks should get more than a cheerleader.

His ass needs to be fired if he blows the playoffs or we get swept in the first round.

Living overseas has one distressful disadvantage called different time zones, which means almost all of the games are going late at night. And therefore I would like to say thank you to the Bucks that gave me the possibility to turn off my notebook just at 01:00 PM, so I could sleep a bit longer and didn't have to sacrifice watching this painful game until 3:00 PM.
I would like to also thank them I could avoid more stress and frustration watchig my Knicks playing worse and worse game by game...

Yea...let's totally ignore him taking it upon himself to draw double teams against Orlando and move the ball and rack up 9 assists.

And does MDA look at that and say "things that make you go hmmmmmmm?" or does he say "alright, good try Melo...now let's try this...continue to space the court by standing behind the 3-point line...what's that? You're one of the more dominant non-4/5 post players in the game? Listen son...I won 60+ games with Phoenix...you gotta get out there on the perimeter."

I didn't always agree with you LJ, but I respected you because you at least attempted to make valid points with what seemed to be tangible info...but I'm beginning to think that you're a little slow in the head. The ball stopped moving with STAT as many times as it did with Melo...I know Melo spat in your cereal or fondled your woman or something...but you gotta let it go.

Hahaha!! I'm slow?!? That's funny because I look at you all as typical fickle and emotional fans that don't know sh*t about basketall and ony analyze it through emotions.

I said months ago...MONTHS AGO...trading for Melo was not needed and one of the worst things we could do. That it would fail miserably but the fans would be dazzled by the amount of points Melo scored and ultimately D'Antoni would be fired because of it.

I was right two years ago about how we didn't have enough cap space for two max free agents. Nobody believed me (and Oldtimer). It wasn't until the rumors of us trading Jeffries to Houston surfaced before anybody caught on.

Hopefully I'm wrong about the new CBA. Hopefully all the reports of a more restrictive CBA are false. Hopefully I'm wrong about gutting the team for Melo would leave us with no cap space, no assets and no ability to build around Melo and Amare.

But if I'm right again....Melo will have done something much worse than "spitting in my cereal or fondling my girlfriend".

It's simple empirical evidence. Before the trade: ball movement and tons of assists, but we lost games when our threes were not falling. Now, aka after the trade, no ball movement, less threes and we lose every darn game. Idk whether it is Melo or Billups, but somehow it seems like we pooped on ourself by giving up half of our roster for an aging chucker (whom Nuggets fans were glad to see leaving) and MElo. Once Dolan gets involved it's Isiah all over again.
Remember that "formidable" front line of Randolph and Lee (the ads)? This is the same thing all over again. Sometimes it is not a matter of talent but how the pieces fit together and what we have right now to me seems like an attempt to cross-breed a Chihuahua and a Great Dane.

True. The evidence speaks for itself.

By the way, Nuggets fans are glad to see Melo gone too. Out here in Colorado we all knew about the pouting on the bench, not listening to and arguing with the coach, lazy on defense, extremely inefficient volume shooter and selfish player.

Hahaha!! I'm slow?!? That's funny because I look at you all as typical fickle and emotional fans that don't know sh*t about basketall and ony analyze it through emotions.

I said months ago...MONTHS AGO...trading for Melo was not needed and one of the worst things we could do. That it would fail miserably but the fans would be dazzled by the amount of points Melo scored and ultimately D'Antoni would be fired because of it.

I was right two years ago about how we didn't have enough cap space for two max free agents. Nobody believed me (and Oldtimer). It wasn't until the rumors of us trading Jeffries to Houston surfaced before anybody caught on.

Hopefully I'm wrong about the new CBA. Hopefully all the reports of a more restrictive CBA are false. Hopefully I'm wrong about gutting the team for Melo would leave us with no cap space, no assets and no ability to build around Melo and Amare.

But if I'm right again....Melo will have done something much worse than "spitting in my cereal or fondling my girlfriend".

No matter what they do in the new CBA they're not going to make every one dollar of a current contract = 2 dollars of cap space...so Billups' contract coming off the books, next season, gives us some spending money. And if there's a more restrictive CBA, ie: lower cap, possibly a hard cap, then the $14M coming off the books could be slightly more valuable in terms of what kind of value it could bring in. Players don't get more expensive if the CBA gets more restrictive in terms of what players can make. The only immediate major concern is whether or not we'll get a MLE mechanism in the new CBA, which we could use to get some size on the team this summer. You just said a whole lot of "hopefully" and really nothing else.

I wasn't here for your apparent convos about our cap situation two years ago...but...congratulations? I dunno what that was supposed to prove, the numbers said we didn't have enough for two max deals in 2010 where the first year of a max contract would be about $16M. That info was out there, if you brought it to someone's attention...more power to you.

All of your assumptions that we don't need Melo was based on your desire to build a team around a superstar, and complimentary players. That's a fine vision...but it hasn't worked in quite some time. The league has headed in a direction where you need multiple players on the offensive end who can legitimately run the offense through them. When it's one guy, and the rest of them, you can take away one or the other and have success against the team. Don't know how many superstar, HOF caliber players have to not be able to win a ring as the only legit #1 option on their team before you realize that having a single focal point, while your opponents have 2 and sometimes even 3 focal points, isn't good enough. That's not my opinion, that's Kobe not winning without Pau or Shaq, Wade not winning without Shaq (albeit it a slower, but still effective enough to cause problems down low,) KG, Pierce, and Allen all winning their first one together, Mike not doing much in terms of rings until the Bulls draft Mr. Pippen, The Twin Towers, and then Duncan later on with Manu and Tony, the list goes on. Why subject STAT to a fate where he would be on a team bucking the trend and trying to win a ring with Danilo and Wilson as his running mates? As solid a pro as they are, they're the Trevor Ariza and James Posey's of championship teams, but you still need your Pau, Pierce, Shaq, etc. So I can't help but feel like you vision of how to build a championship team in 2011 is a little flawed.

And then you love to use the Lakers as an example as if they didn't trade Kwame Brown, Javaris Crittenton, the rights to Marc, a ham sammich, and a couple of paper clips to get a max-contract, superstar eligible player in Pau to go along with Kobe, and Odom....who's replicating that anytime soon? They have two legit max players, who both have max deals in Kobe and Pau, and then Odom is a starting PF for 22-24 of the teams in the NBA, coming off the bench for LA...come on dude....

Plus, none of that has anything to do with why you said "13 total assists. SMH. Thanks Melo. I hope you and your wife are happy with all your millions." as if Melo hasn't been moving the ball more than STAT has in the past few games. It makes it look like you're less objective and a little biased against one dude. On Wednesday, Melo went against the typical offensive sets and "flow" and created for his teammates to the point where he led the team in assists...what are you saying? He shouldn't have touched the ball at all on those plays? 6-12 FG, 2-3 from behind the arc, 10-11 FT, and 9 assists...he had almost as many assists as he did field goals that counted against his tally.

If trading for Melo causes us to lose a coach that hasn't shown the proper adjustments to close out games where we have a lead, in 2 years, that's certainly a win-win. On monday I sat in the Garden and watched the Knicks put up early shots in the 4th, with a 7 point lead, not get the rebounds, not get back in transition, and let Boston chip away at the lead until they claimed it for themselves. Then once they had it, they bogged down the game, ate the clock, and forced the Knicks into even more frantic, low percentage, shots....only to lose the game. And you're telling me this is because of Melo's acquisition? Melo being here made MDA not make an adjustment to the way we played the 4th? Really?

The Knicks have lost in that fashion since MDA's first season here, even with our weak rosters. Even sub-par to straight bad teams can hold onto a lead in the 4th or at least keep it close to give themselves a chance (Philly against Miami last night, and Charlotte beating Boston) but the fundamental things that are needed to accomplish that, aren't the things MDA preaches and implements late in games, based on what he's shown the past 2+ seasons. I think that's a large enough sample size to evaluate the dude.

No matter what they do in the new CBA they're not going to make every one dollar of a current contract = 2 dollars of cap space...so Billups' contract coming off the books, next season, gives us some spending money. And if there's a more restrictive CBA, ie: lower cap, possibly a hard cap, then the $14M coming off the books could be slightly more valuable in terms of what kind of value it could bring in. Players don't get more expensive if the CBA gets more restrictive in terms of what players can make. The only immediate major concern is whether or not we'll get a MLE mechanism in the new CBA, which we could use to get some size on the team this summer. You just said a whole lot of "hopefully" and really nothing else.

I wasn't here for your apparent convos about our cap situation two years ago...but...congratulations? I dunno what that was supposed to prove, the numbers said we didn't have enough for two max deals in 2010 where the first year of a max contract would be about $16M. That info was out there, if you brought it to someone's attention...more power to you.

All of your assumptions that we don't need Melo was based on your desire to build a team around a superstar, and complimentary players. That's a fine vision...but it hasn't worked in quite some time. The league has headed in a direction where you need multiple players on the offensive end who can legitimately run the offense through them. When it's one guy, and the rest of them, you can take away one or the other and have success against the team. Don't know how many superstar, HOF caliber players have to not be able to win a ring as the only legit #1 option on their team before you realize that having a single focal point, while your opponents have 2 and sometimes even 3 focal points, isn't good enough. That's not my opinion, that's Kobe not winning without Pau or Shaq, Wade not winning without Shaq (albeit it a slower, but still effective enough to cause problems down low,) KG, Pierce, and Allen all winning their first one together, Mike not doing much in terms of rings until the Bulls draft Mr. Pippen, The Twin Towers, and then Duncan later on with Manu and Tony, the list goes on. Why subject STAT to a fate where he would be on a team bucking the trend and trying to win a ring with Danilo and Wilson as his running mates? As solid a pro as they are, they're the Trevor Ariza and James Posey's of championship teams, but you still need your Pau, Pierce, Shaq, etc. So I can't help but feel like you vision of how to build a championship team in 2011 is a little flawed.

And then you love to use the Lakers as an example as if they didn't trade Kwame Brown, Javaris Crittenton, the rights to Marc, a ham sammich, and a couple of paper clips to get a max-contract, superstar eligible player in Pau to go along with Kobe, and Odom....who's replicating that anytime soon? They have two legit max players, who both have max deals in Kobe and Pau, and then Odom is a starting PF for 22-24 of the teams in the NBA, coming off the bench for LA...come on dude....

Plus, none of that has anything to do with why you said "13 total assists. SMH. Thanks Melo. I hope you and your wife are happy with all your millions." as if Melo hasn't been moving the ball more than STAT has in the past few games. It makes it look like you're less objective and a little biased against one dude. On Wednesday, Melo went against the typical offensive sets and "flow" and created for his teammates to the point where he led the team in assists...what are you saying? He shouldn't have touched the ball at all on those plays? 6-12 FG, 2-3 from behind the arc, 10-11 FT, and 9 assists...he had almost as many assists as he did field goals that counted against his tally.

If trading for Melo causes us to lose a coach that hasn't shown the proper adjustments to close out games where we have a lead, in 2 years, that's certainly a win-win. On monday I sat in the Garden and watched the Knicks put up early shots in the 4th, with a 7 point lead, not get the rebounds, not get back in transition, and let Boston chip away at the lead until they claimed it for themselves. Then once they had it, they bogged down the game, ate the clock, and forced the Knicks into even more frantic, low percentage, shots....only to lose the game. And you're telling me this is because of Melo's acquisition? Melo being here made MDA not make an adjustment to the way we played the 4th? Really?

The Knicks have lost in that fashion since MDA's first season here, even with our weak rosters. Even sub-par to straight bad teams can hold onto a lead in the 4th or at least keep it close to give themselves a chance (Philly against Miami last night, and Charlotte beating Boston) but the fundamental things that are needed to accomplish that, aren't the things MDA preaches and implements late in games, based on what he's shown the past 2+ seasons. I think that's a large enough sample size to evaluate the dude.

You constantly make the wrong assumption that Melo was the only option and that I think we would only get role players around Amare. That our only choices were gut the team for Melo or never win a championship. I disagree.

Saying my assumptions that we don't need Melo was based on my desire to build a team around a superstar, and complimentary players is just a flat out lie. We didn't need Melo because he doesn't compliment Amare well (both are ball dominant, both like to get the ball at the elbow, both are lazy defenders, etc) and that it would cost too much to trade for him. Plus Melo is highly overrated. Adding him to the roster in the summer would have been fine with me. That should have been option 1. Option 2 should have been to move on. Go after other players (e.g. DWill, CP3, Nene+, etc). Gutting the team for Melo should not have even been an option. He wasn't worth it.

I have no problem getting rid of D'Antoni. I don't know why you make this out to be either D'Antoni or Melo. I have not defended D'Antoni at all through this. Gutting the team for Melo was the worst decision for this franchise regardless of who the coach is.

Hey, you love Melo and think he's great. I don't. You think he is a great compliment to Amare. I don't. You think gutting the team was the only chance to win a championship. I don't. I think his greed could possibly eliminate any chance at winning a championship. We'll find out this summer. If we're championsip contenders next year it was worth it. If not, it wasn't.

In the meantime, go ahead and keep complaining about D'Antoni and how it is all his fault that we suck after the trade deadline. I don't say anything about your hatred for D'Antoni. Yet you call me biased. SMH. Every single post in this website is anti-D'Antoni. I let it slide. I don't say anything. Yet when I say anything negative about Melo everybody gets all upset. I'm supposed to shut up and say everything is fine and Melo is perfect and gutting the team was worth it and the CBA is nothing to worry about. Well I'm sorry I don't agree with you.